Kathryn Ramey
Boston, MA
Kathryn Ramey is a filmmaker and anthropologist whose work operates at the intersection of experimental film processes and ethnographic research. Her deeply personal films are characterized by manipulation of celluloid including hand-processing, optical printing, and various direct animation techniques. Her scholarly interest focuses on the social history of the avant-garde film community, the anthropology of visual communication, and the intersection between avant-garde and ethnographic film and art practices.
Ramey has received awards, grants, and fellowships from various agencies including the Social Science Research Council on the Arts, LEF Foundation, Massachusetts Cultural Council on the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Corporation of Yaddo, Philadelphia Independent Film and Video Association, Kodak, Temple University and Emerson College. Her films have screened at multiple film festivals including Toronto, Tribeca, Black Maria, Ann Arbor, 25fps Zagreb, L’Alternativa Barcelona, and Alchemy Scotland. She has screened at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC, International House in Philadelphia, NYU, Harvard and the Musée Quai Branly, Paris. She is the author of the book Experimental Filmmaking: BREAK THE MACHINE, and is a full professor at Emerson College in Boston.
El Signo Vacío
Kathryn Ramey is a filmmaker and anthropologist whose work operates at the intersection of experimental film processes and ethnographic research.
Artist BioUsing educational, touristic and military media/artifacts from the United States alongside contemporary voices, images and sounds from Puerto Rico, El Signo Vacío (the empty sign) is a feature-length cinematic essay interrogating the 120-year US occupation of Puerto Rico to reveal how US democratic narratives effectively obscure its capitalist/military domination.